EDIFACT (UN/EDIFACT)
UN/EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport) is the United Nations-maintained international standard for structured business-to-business messaging. EDIFACT defines the messages (ORDERS, INVOIC, DESADV and many others), the syntax for encoding them, and the protocols for exchanging them. EDIFACT dominates B2B EDI outside North America and in cross-border supply chains, while inside the United States the regional standard is ANSI ASC X12 (developed in 1979 and governed by the Accredited Standards Committee chartered by ANSI). US companies most often encounter EDIFACT when they trade with overseas suppliers or customers; domestically, X12 transaction sets such as 850 (purchase order), 856 (advance ship notice) and 810 (invoice) play the role that EDIFACT messages play elsewhere.
Common EDIFACT messages
- ORDERS — purchase order from buyer to supplier (X12 850 equivalent)
- ORDRSP — order acknowledgement from supplier to buyer (X12 855 equivalent)
- DESADV — despatch advice / advance shipping notice (ASN; X12 856 equivalent)
- RECADV — receiving advice from buyer confirming receipt
- INVOIC — invoice from supplier to buyer (X12 810 equivalent)
- REMADV — remittance advice from buyer indicating payment (X12 820 equivalent)
- DELFOR — delivery forecast for JIT supply scenarios
- DELJIT — fine-grained delivery call-off for JIT operations
- INVRPT — inventory report for VMI scenarios
- QUOTES — quotation
- PAYMUL — multiple-payment instruction
Industry subsets
The full EDIFACT message-library is enormous. Industries have defined subsets constraining which fields and codes are used in their specific context. Notable subsets: ODETTE — European automotive (the US automotive equivalent is the AIAG-maintained set of X12 transactions used by the Detroit OEMs and their suppliers). EANCOM — the GS1-maintained EDIFACT subset for retail and consumer-goods supply chains, widely used internationally; in US retail the comparable GS1 US guidelines are built on X12. EDIFICE — electronics industry. EDIPAP — paper industry. EDITEX — textile. UTILMD — a utility-industry message family used in European energy-market communication; in the US deregulated retail-energy markets the equivalent role is filled by X12 transactions (for example the 814 used for enrollment and drop requests between energy service providers and utilities). Each subset has its own version history and update rhythm; staying current requires dedicated EDI expertise or managed-service providers.
Transport mechanisms
EDIFACT and X12 messages travel through various transport channels. AS2 (Applicability Statement 2): HTTP-based with S/MIME encryption and signed delivery receipts; the dominant protocol in US retail — Walmart has mandated AS2 for suppliers since 2002, and Target, Costco and others follow similar internet-EDI models. AS4: WS-* based successor to AS2, used in some industries and in utility-market communication. OFTP / OFTP2: Odette File Transfer Protocol, dominant in European automotive supply chains; OFTP2 adds TLS encryption. FTP/SFTP: simpler legacy transport, declining for security reasons. API gateways: increasingly, modern EDI flows wrap EDIFACT or X12 in REST APIs for cloud-native integration. VAN (Value-Added Network): third-party network providers (OpenText, IBM Sterling, SPS Commerce, SAP Business Network) provide managed EDI-message routing.
Managed EDI providers
Most US mid-market companies use managed-EDI service providers rather than building in-house expertise. Leading US-relevant providers include SPS Commerce (large retail-focused managed network), TrueCommerce (fully managed end-to-end EDI), Cleo (hybrid EDI and API integration), OpenText Business Network (formerly GXS), IBM Sterling, Boomi, DiCentral and Orderful (API-first EDI). Selection criteria: industry coverage (does the provider already connect to your customer base, such as Walmart, Amazon or Target?), partner-onboarding speed, monitoring and exception-handling, and integration with your specific ERP. Pricing: most providers charge on transaction volume, number of trading partners and custom mapping, with all-in costs commonly running from about $12,000 to $120,000+ per year (roughly $1,000-$10,000+ per month) depending on complexity, plus separate fees for partner onboarding, map changes and support. For mid-market automotive and retail suppliers, managed EDI is operationally essential and the cost is well-justified.